


Begin Again

by carafin



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Epistolary, M/M, Multimedia, Pre-Slash, contains image, takeda is the little giant, ukai is the earnest math teacher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 05:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4948759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carafin/pseuds/carafin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Takeda is the little giant, and Ukai doesn't want to give up.</p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <b>From: takedaittetsu@miyagipublishinghouse.com<br/>To: ukai.keishin@karasunohighschool.edu.jp</b>
  </p>
  <p>Dear Mr. Ukai,</p>
  <p>Thank you for your email, and the letters you have sent via my publisher. Apologies for the late reply, as I have been rather busy due to my recent book launch.</p>
  <p>I’m afraid that I would have to turn down your request for my coaching services, as I am no longer interested in the sport. Apologies, and I hope that you will find a better candidate soon.</p>
  <p>Sincerely,<br/>Takeda Ittetsu</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hanzawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanzawa/gifts).



> written for the prompt: "AU where Takeda's the coach and Ukai's the teacher would be great"
> 
> this fic contains images; apologies for the poor quality.

**From:** **ukai.keishin@karasunohighschool.edu.jp  
** **To:** **takedaittetsu@miyagipublishinghouse.com**

Dear Mr. Takeda,

As a loyal fan of your books, in particular the series "As the Crow Flies", it is my great pleasure to be writing to you. As much as I would gladly enthuse over your recent publications, I am contacting you right now with a special request in mind.

I’ll cut to the chase: I am the teacher-in-charge of Karasuno High School’s volleyball team, and we have been lacking a proper coach for some time now. Recently, a colleague of mine who knew you back in high school referred me to you; he told me that you used to play for Karasuno, and that you were an excellent player back in your time. A few students of mine have also heard of your name, and would be more than thrilled to have you as our coach.

I understand that this is a tall order, given your busy schedule as a popular author; nonetheless, I would like to request for your coaching services, if only for a short period of time. If you are interested, I would be more than willing to negotiate the smaller details, such as the training schedule and your hourly rate.

I apologise that I should be contacting you via such an unorthodox manner, as I do not have any other method of reaching out to you. Nonetheless, my team and I would appreciate it very much if you could take my offer into consideration. I have attached my handphone number, home number, and office number along with this email; feel free to drop me a call at your convenience.

I understand that you are a very busy man, and I greatly appreciate that you have taken the time to read this humble offer of mine; it would mean very much if you would be so kind as to give us a reply.

Sincerely yours,

Ukai Keishin

 

 **From:** **takedaittetsu@miyagipublishinghouse.com  
** **To:** **ukai.keishin@karasunohighschool.edu.jp**

Dear reader,

Thank you for taking the time to reach out to me. As much as I would like to personally and promptly respond to all your letters, I might be unable to do so due to time constraints. For this I apologise deeply, although I can assure you that your letters have been and will continue to be a great source of inspiration and encouragement to me.

Regards,

Takeda Ittetsu

(This is an automatically generated email.)

 

  


 

‘You know, you can always look for another coach,’ Shimida says, after he catches Ukai refreshing his email inbox despondently in the staffroom for the fifth time that day. ‘There are like, hundreds of other coaches in Japan. He isn’t the only guy in the world who can teach your kids volleyball.’

‘It’s not just about teaching volleyball,’ Ukai says, drumming his fingers absently on the table while glaring at the laptop screen, brows furrowed. There is a quiet _ding!_ as a new mail pops up in his inbox; Ukai tenses up for a moment, before realising that it was just an advertisement for a one-for-one ramen restaurant promotion, the _fourth_ one that day. He directs a pointed, wilting glare at the laptop screen, for which Shimida throws him an odd look. Shimida looks like he is about to say something, most probably something along the lines of how Ukai should direct his perverse determination into getting a girlfriend instead of worrying about the volleyball club, but thankfully the end-of-recess bell starts to chime. ‘Sorry, Ukai, I’d help out if I could, but my hands are going to be tied by the drama club this whole sem.'

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Ukai tells him with a friendly wave of his hand. Shimida gives him a consoling pat on the shoulder before making his way out of the staffroom. There’s a moment of silence as Ukai continues to refresh his inbox for the hundredth time in that hour - at this point he is certain that the fiery pits of hell consists unopened fanmail and ramen restaurant advertisements - before he clicks the red cross at the top right hand of his screen, and slams his laptop shut with a little more force than necessary.

It’s not just about teaching volleyball. A club that has been in the decline for more than five years will need more than just someone equipped with technical knowledge; Daichi’s a great leader, and they’ve a few pretty talented members, but no amount of talent and hard work can make up for the lack of a mentor figure. A boy still in high school, however capable, can never inspire the sort of confidence and sense of security of a seasoned mentor; there is charisma and diligence, and then there is the sort of wisdom that comes with being in the courts for many years. Ukai might not be a volleyball player himself, but he knows that much.

The day Shimida had told him about the Little Giant - ‘he was always so quiet and unassuming in class, you know? Your typical nerd. I think he topped Japanese Lit every single year. But anyway - the moment he went on the courts, everyone was just like, okay, who is this guy and where did he come from, and you’d never be able to take your eyes off him because he was just - just charged with this _incredible_ intensity, you should’ve seen it, it was like he’d staked his entire life on the match’ - he’d gone home and searched for every piece of information regarding the infamous ex-volleyball player. He’d unearthed a few old articles from online sports magazines, with titles like ‘Karasuno’s Little Giant’, ‘High School Boy Wins Best Player Award For Two Straight years’, and ‘He Didn’t Let His Height Stop Him’.

Whatever few pictures he'd managed to gather had all revealed a rather unremarkable looking boy, all hunched shoulders and awkward elbows, the unease on his face palpable even through the grainy pixels on the screen. Ukai had been thoroughly unimpressed, until, two articles later, he’d chanced upon another picture of the same boy. The photographer had miraculously managed to take a picture of him during the split second before his palm had contacted the ball in a spike, his body still hovering somewhere in mid-air, and it was then that Ukai saw it: the boy's eyes, lit with some sort of feral concentration, his entire form exuding an all-consuming intensity.

Ukai had shuddered a little then. He'd thought about witnessing that raw ferocity for himself, in the heat of an actual match, had felt his being condense into a single thread of longing -

(And the rest - the rest is history.)

 

 

 **MIYAGI PUBLISHING HOUSE**  
**WHERE IMAGINATION TAKES FLIGHT**

**Dear Mr. Ukai Keishin,**

Thank you for your letter dated 2nd February 2013. Here at Miyagi Publishing House, we strive to address every need and enquiry of our patrons.

Regarding your query: please be assured that all fan mails we receive will be forwarded to their respective authors immediately. There is no â€˜secret quotaâ€™ for fan mails sent from a single fan to an author, neither will we withhold or destroy any letter we receive. Please also be assured that each of your fifteen letters have been forwarded to Mr. Takeda Ittetsu. Whether and how an author chooses to reply to his fan mail, however, is completely independent of our company.

We hope that your concerns have been adequately addressed. Thank you for your continued patronage of our store.

 **Inada Kowara**  
Customer Service  
Miyagi Publishing House

 

 

 **From:** **takedaittetsu@miyagipublishinghouse.coma  
** **To:** **ukai.keishin@karasunohighschool.edu.jp**

Dear Mr. Ukai,

Thank you for your email, and the letters you have sent via my publisher. Apologies for the late reply, as I have been rather busy due to my recent book launch.

I’m afraid that I would have to turn down your request for my coaching services, as I am no longer interested in the sport. Apologies, and I hope that you will find a better candidate soon.

Sincerely,

Takeda Ittetsu

 

 

On the day of Takeda’s book signing, Ukai takes half a day of unpaid leave and makes his way to Sendai University, where Takeda will be holding brief a Q and A session with his readers before the actual event. He makes it in time to slip into the last row of seats in the seminar room, and wedges himself in between a group of excitable university students and a bunch of old women from a book club.

Takeda shuffles in a few minutes before the session is scheduled to start, so innocuously that Ukai would easily have missed his entrance if not for the tell-tale flashes of cameras, and the accompanying flurry of excited whispers. Ukai looks up; Takeda's wearing a simple collared shirt which looks like it has been ironed to the death, black pants, and sensible shoes; the sort of guy Ukai might pass by on the streets without so much as a second glance. Takeda’s also wearing spectacles now, Ukai notices.

The audience falls into silence when Takeda walks up to the podium. There’s a nervous clearing of throat, and then Takeda speaks.

‘Thank you all for coming down today,’ he says to wild applause, and gives a bow so impeccable that Ukai is seized with a strange urge to measure the sharp ninety-degree angle of Takeda's bent spine with a set square. ‘I’m very pleased to have all of you here.’

He goes on to express his gratitude to his editors and his family members and his readers and, after having extended his thanks to possibly half of Japan’s populace, finally gets to the Q and A segment.

A bunch of hands shoot up from amongst the audience. Ukai waits till Takeda has answered a few questions, before raising his hand.

‘Yes, the gentleman at the back,’ Takeda addresses him pleasantly, and Ukai stands up ramrod straight, his heart beating staccato against his chest.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but one of the central themes of We’ll Rise from Concrete is the concept of fate, agency, and rising above difficult times.’ There’s a quote from the book that Ukai’s been running his eyes over and over, a line spoken by the protagonist in the final chapter right before defeating the enemy: _If we are all puppets to be manipulated by fate, then what am I, who chose to grow proud and tall from the concrete, who walks my own path_. ‘And things like how we should fight against the unfavourable circumstances that we were born into.’

‘That’s right.’ Takeda nods.

‘I understand that you were an accomplished volleyball player in your past,’ Ukai says, to general astonishment. ‘Did your experiences with the sport significantly affect your beliefs and ideals as a writer, and the themes and motifs you choose to explore?’

A murmur ripples throughout the audience. Something in Takeda’s expression shifts.

‘Most of my readers aren’t acquainted with my past experiences with volleyball,’ Takeda replies, the careful, neutral tone of his voice betraying nothing. Ukai tips his head down a little, as if to apologise for the possible breach of privacy.

‘Please stop me if this is - this is intrusive,’ Ukai says. He’s so nervous his head is starting to hurt in a most curious manner, which is strange, because he’s never been one to feel afraid when addressing large crowds. The way Takeda is looking at him, however - Ukai's sure that greater men have faltered for lesser things. ‘But I understand that you were an excellent player despite not being as tall as the rest. And there are many allusions to things like heights and walls and giants in your book, and they seem like - I dunno, like references to the difficulties you might have faced as a player.’ A pause. ‘That’s - that’s just pure conjecture on my part, of course,’ he supplements hastily, because by now the entire audience has turned to look at him with great bafflement. Lady Book Club next to him lets out a particularly dramatic gasp.

Takeda’s looking at him with an inscrutable expression on his face. Slowly, the edges of his lips curl up into a smile-but-not-quite-smile. ‘I never expected anyone to draw such a connection,’ he says, in a measured tone. ‘But I suppose - yes, yes I did.’

There’s a good thirty metres between Takeda and where Ukai is sitting, but Ukai catches the darkening intensity in Takeda’s eyes, notices for the first time in that afternoon the firm set of Takeda's jaws. It’s the same feeling he'd gotten from the boy he’d seen in the magazine article, the same nervous flipping of his stomach.

And in spite of three hundred pairs of eyes glued onto him, in spite of how absurd his question might have seemed, Ukai can't help but break into a face-splitting grin, because - yes, this is what he was trying so desperately to find. Yes, this is everything he was looking for.

 

 

After the Q and A session, Ukai follows the throng of crowd to the open area outside the seminar room, where Takeda will be conducting his book signing. It’s a long wait; ahead of him, the line snakes around the building twice before Ukai gets to reach Takeda, and it’s sweltering, _and_ the straps of his backpack are digging painfully into his shoulders. The line doesn’t seem to be moving, although this doesn’t surprise Ukai at all; every Takeda Ittetsu fan knows that he’s way too nice to turn anyone down for photos and a question or two, and although that translates to excruciating waiting times, no one seems to mind.

Ukai finally gets to Takeda after an hour and a half.

‘Hello,’ Takeda says pleasantly, if a little warily. Ukai supposes that's only to be expected after the interesting (if somewhat _unorthodox_ ) encounter at the Q and A session. ‘You’re the one from just now.’

He trails off as Ukai lugs his bag onto the table in front of him, draws out thirteen copies of _We’ll Rise from Concrete_ , and dumps every book onto the table with a loud, unceremonious thump.

Each book is three hundred pages thick.

‘I… this... thank you for the support,’ Takeda says, looking overwhelmed.

‘I got thirteen copies of this,’ Ukai says. ‘So please, give me thirteen minutes of your time.’

The crowd’s murmuring now; there is a faint smattering of disapproving noises. Takeda looks around, clearly flustered, before turning to gape at him. ‘I’m very sorry, but as you can see, there’s a line behind you,’ Takeda begins, weakly, but Ukai doesn’t budge.

‘I’ll wait till everyone gets their book signed,’ Ukai says. ‘You only have to give me thirteen minutes.’

‘That might take two more hours -’

‘That’s fine with me.’

Takeda’s looking at him funny now. ‘You’re really persistent.’

Ukai raps the pile of books with two knuckles. ‘Well yeah, I learned from this.’

‘Alright,’ Takeda concedes eventually, after surveying Ukai for a few seconds. ‘There’s a cafe next to this building, we could meet there once I’m done.’

At this, Ukai breaks into a grin. ‘Thanks,’ he says, gripping Takeda’s hands with considerably more strength than one would exert for a handshake. To his surprise, Takeda doesn’t flinch or pull his hands away, the way most other people would, and holds Ukai's hands with surprising firmness instead. 'Thanks so much.'

Ukai's barely left the table when he hears Takeda call out from behind him.

‘You’re Ukai Keishin, aren’t you,’ Takeda says, although it is less of a question than a statement. Ukai turns his head back and smiles before walking away.

 

 

Takeda doesn’t seem like the type of man who would go against his words, so Ukai waits patiently in the cafe even though three hours have passed and there is still no sight of the other man. It’s almost evening when Takeda makes his way into the cafe, although not before accidentally walking into a bunch of potted plants and almost tripping over a step while holding a bunch of paper bags - probably containing gifts and letters from his fans - in his hands. If clumsiness were an art form, this man would be a perfect embodiment of it.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Takeda says, deeply apologetic, and Ukai has to stop him from performing an admirably angled bow in the middle of a cafe. They engage in a brief and obligatory tussle to foot the bill for the drinks, before settling down in a quiet corner with their coffee. Having finally shed the last of his crowd-induced nervousness, Takeda looks visibly less flustered and high-strung.

‘How did you guess who I am?’ Ukai asks, stirring his coffee with such vehemence that a few drops of the liquid fly onto his pants. He wipes them off hastily.

‘You sent me fifteen fan mails and so many emails that my spam filter started blocking you.’ Across the table, Takeda is putting sugar and creamer into his coffee in a considerably more civil manner. ‘Not many people I know are excessive enough to buy thirteen copies of a hardcover that weighs at least two kilograms and bring it here.’

‘Er,’ Ukai says with great eloquence, unable to decide whether Takeda meant his last statement as a praise or an insult.

Takeda takes a sip of the coffee, makes a small face, and starts to blow at the liquid. His shirt has become visibly crumbled over the past few hours, his black hair is all mussed and messy, and there's a slight sheen of sweat coating his forehead. Up close, he's a lot more animated than he was at the podium, his expressions almost child-like, but Ukai knows better - he's seen for himself that these soft features are capable of steel and resolve. 'It wasn't just that, actually.'

Ukai looks at him questioningly.

Takeda smiles. He looks a little sheepish. ‘Very few people know of my past with volleyball.’

Ukai sits up a little straighter. ‘Why would you want to hide it?’

‘It’s not so much an attempt to hide it from others,’ Takeda says, slowly, ‘as it is an attempt to hide it from myself.’

For a moment Ukai feels his throat clamp up. ‘Why?’

Takeda takes out his glasses and wipes them absentmindedly against his shirt. ‘I tore almost all the ligaments in my left knee during my first year of university. The doctors said that I won’t be able to play again.’

Of course Ukai should have anticipated this. _Of course_ he should have. He curses himself inwardly. 

'I'm sorry,' Ukai says after a while, for the lack of a better response, but it isn't anything that Takeda doesn't already know. Something catches in Ukai's throat.

Takeda inclines his head slightly. 'It's alright.'

‘The email…' Ukai says, placing his elbows on the table. 'Was that what you meant when you said you weren’t interested in the sport any more?’

The thing is, if Takeda had declined Ukai’s offer for a book tour or other work-related events, Ukai wouldn’t have pressed on with such persistence. The thing is, deep down, Ukai knows that there's a tiny part of him that had wanted to meet Takeda Itettsu for reasons other than the simple 'I need to find a coach for the team.' Personal, selfish reasons that'd surfaced right from the moment he'd laid eyes on that picture, reasons that eluded even himself. And it had disturbed him back then, the sentence from the email, its strangely detached undertone and the stank finality of it all: _I’m not longer interested in the sport._ Ukai had thought about Shimida’s many recounts of Takeda’s volleyball career, and the image of him in the air, his arms raised, had thought about Hinata’s reverent expression whenever ‘little giant’ came up in the conversation.

Those words hadn’t made sense back then; Ukai isn’t even sure if they make sense right now.

'Yes, it was what I meant.' Takeda's studying him with an odd expression on his face, like he's trying to figure out something. 'I wanted to distance myself from it.'

‘Yet you still based your works on it,’ Ukai says, leaning forward, his tone laced with urgency. He tries very hard to ignore the small voice at the back of his mind going, _I hope this isn’t cruel of me_. ‘I’m sorry if this is going to sound presumptuous, but I think you still want to be part of it.’

There’s a pause. Takeda blinks a few times, before bringing the steaming coffee to his lips. His hands are trembling slightly.

‘I suppose...’ Takeda says when he sets down the cup eventually, his voice trailing off. Something in his eyes clouds over a little, but clears up just as fast. He peers at Ukai owlishly through his thick glasses. ‘Do you mind if I asked you a question?’

Ukai nods. ‘Go ahead.’

Takeda coughs a little, as if embarrassed. ‘Why did you buy thirteen books of mine? Surely you didn't do it just for ten more extra minutes.’

‘I got one for each member of the team,’ Ukai says, feeling sudden heat rising to his cheeks. ‘And, uh, one for myself.’

‘Oh,’ Takeda says, looking kind of touched, and blinks a little. They sit in silence for a while, until Takeda speaks again.

‘Ukai-san, why do you go to such lengths for the team? Did you use to play volleyball yourself?’

Something about the way Takeda says Ukai-san makes Ukai’s pulse speed up, just a little. But what pleases him the most is the question that followed the statement, spoken like a second thought, an invitation: _Impress me. Convince me._ He flashes a grin at Takeda. ‘Nah, I’ve never played it in my life.’

Takeda tilts his head to the side a little. ‘Then why...’

‘There are a few boys I’d like you to meet,’ Ukai says slowly, his heart suddenly picking up speed, his fingertips tingling. ‘If you met them, I think you’d understand.’

‘Then,’ Takeda says, and he’s smiling a little now, ‘I’ll just have to meet them, don’t I?’

Ukai’s cup slips from his hands and crashes onto the ground.

 

 

 And although he didn’t really fall out of love with the sport, it is amidst polished wooden floors, the familiar scent of salonpas, and the hearty laughter of twelve boys, that Takeda Ittetsu discovers volleyball all over again.

 

 


End file.
